


A Conference for the Books

by MusicPlayer81



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23832742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicPlayer81/pseuds/MusicPlayer81
Summary: Lin as police chief has held her share of press conferences--but being  called into a parent-conference is something else entirely. Features my OC, Chen Beifong, along with others.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	A Conference for the Books

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoy! I wrote this as a miniature character study to examine how Lin might react if she were ever in this situation. My OC, Chen, can be found in other parts of my work. She features most heavily, however, in my work "Guess I'm Going with You." If you're interested, please take a look!

Her uncles had always told her to beware the midnight shift. That was when all the creeps appeared, they said. The city was in its rawest form. If it were a living thing, it’d be feral. And honestly? She was fine with that. She never had done well with pretension anyways.

What they did not tell her, however, was that the most surprises were in the afternoon.

“Aiko-sensei wants a meeting with you!”

Lin paused, her pen hovering over her latest report. She noted distantly that the ink was dripping onto the perp’s mugshot, the man now sneering at the camera through a black eye. “Aiko-sensei wants a what?”

The only thing she could see from her desk was a small hand laboriously pushing an envelope towards her, chubby fingers leaving marks on the green piece of paper. She gently took the envelope from her hand, then peered over the top of her desk. There was Chen, silently bouncing on the balls of her feet, the jade-colored hair bows Lin had so carefully tied in the girl’s long black hair now hanging askew. The chief shook her head, a smile growing on her lips. At least they were still on her head this time. “Come here, cherry blossom.”

Chen brightened and ran into Lin’s outstretched arms, after which the woman settled the little girl on her lap. She handed her the letter. “Can you tell me who exactly Aiko-sensei addressed this to?”

Chen took it in both of her hands, her brow furrowed in thought as her finger traced each exacting stroke. Lin’s fingers found their way to the crooked bows, deftly untying and retying them into her hair. “Ch-Chief, Chief Lin Bei--Beifong of the Me--Metal--Metalbending P--Pol--Police Force!”

Lin beamed and pressed a kiss to the girl’s temple. “Good job, cherry blossom! You did so well!” Chen responded in kind, and turned the letter over, trying to tug off the gold wax seal characteristic of all official correspondence from Convergence Academy. Lin stayed her hand. “No, Chen, let me.” She gently took the letter and, with a wave of her hand, opened it using her metalbending. Sure enough, there was a request from Aiko-sensei of Convergence Academy for a conference with Chen Mei-yin Beifong’s parent and/or legal guardian.

“What does it say, Mama?”

Lin’s eyes quickly flicked over the page.

_Dear Chief Beifong,_ it started off in the same precise script on the envelope,

_As you may be aware, our fall parent-teacher conferences are this upcoming Friday after the half-day bell. While I understand that your Lieutenant Saikhan and his wife Malina are the usual points of contact, I would very much appreciate it if you were the one who attended._

_Yours respectfully,_

_Aiko-sensei_

_Convergence Academy_

* * *

Lin slammed her glass down. “A parent-teacher conference. _A parent-teacher conference?_ What could she _possibly_ want from me?”

Sai looked into his glass and shrugged. The letter Chen had brought her had clearly unnerved her--she had clammed up for the rest of their shift, and had only broken her silence to drag him to drinks after dropping the girls off with Malina. He knew the reasoning behind her worries, of course. It pained him to realize that all these years later it still had an impact.

“I mean, this is ludicrous and unnecessary! Do you have to do this for Alta, Saikhan?”

“Yes, of course, though Malina’s usually the one who goes,” he said, finishing his drink. He motioned for the bartender to pour them each another drink--whiskey neat, as their custom when troubleshooting. He grabbed a new glass, took a swig, and sighed. “Lin, you know it’s only natural for teachers to want to know the parents of their students, right?”

Lin snorted into her drink. “If only it had been mutual.” They sat there, silent as they watched their glasses. As he reached into his coat for a wad of yuans, she spoke. “They can’t know, Saikhan,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t...I can’t have them know.”

Saikhan’s heart _ached_ for Lin. Of course that was worrying her the most. If word were to spread, especially to Tenzin...spirits, it was a miracle he hadn’t wrung the man’s neck. It would have already happened had the man been from any other nation. He took his hand out from his coat and rested it on the bar. “Lin, you don’t need to tell them if you don’t want to. You can tell them you’re Chen’s legal guardian if you need to and leave it at that.”

Lin said nothing, fingering the rim of her glass in response.

“Even if you were to tell,” Sai continued, carefully watching the chief, “Aiko-sensei would keep your secret. Taehyung and Sua give her nothing but their highest recommendations, especially for her character, integrity, and discretion.”

The chief paused and looked up. “Taehyung? Sua? Out in the juvenile protection division? In what capacity do they know her?”

“As an informant. Remember the cases at Public School no. 87?”

She straightened up and nodded. No. 87 had been where the force had finally made arrests on a group of abusive parents who were trying to hide within the system. It had taken them nearly a year to find them, probably longer had the teacher not alerted them in time. They had arrested the group on their second-to-last day before they were to flee to another city in the republic thanks to Aiko-sensei. For her efforts, she had both won a commendation from the force and lost her job from the school. Lin hadn’t heard about the teacher in a while--wasn’t her area of expertise--but everyone’s excitement, and especially that of the juvenile protection department, when they discovered Chen’s enrollment in Convergence Academy now made a lot more sense. “She can be trusted?”

“Yes. Very much so, no matter your decision.”

Lin thought for a moment and then stood, a ghost of a smile on her face. “Thank you, Saikhan.” As he reached once more into his coat for his money, she smacked his hand away. “What do you think you’re trying to do, pay for our drinks?” She reached into her coat and slapped a hefty wad of yuans on the bar. “Keep the change,” she drawled, shrugging on her coat. She walked out the door and into the night, her hair a silver cloud disappearing into the distance.

* * *

Friday afternoon found her anxiously pacing the halls of Convergence Academy, her footsteps echoing off the marble floors. It was located in the heart of Republic City and just minutes away from her work, the resplendent brick building the anchor of its city block. She stomped to feel the stone beneath her new flats, and tugged at the high collar of her ao dai’s tunic. At least she had had the good sense to make them steel.

It hadn’t been her idea to wear civilian clothing. But both Saikhan and Malina had pointed out that her conference was at a school, not at Headquarters.

“So?” had been her response. “It’s technically mine either way, isn’t it?”

Sai sighed, and Malina had pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration as their reactions. The next day found her at her seamstress’ studio, anxiously facing the floor-to-ceiling wall of silks.

“I need something that will catch your eye as soon as you see me but that you’ll forget about as soon as you turn your head,” Lin explained to the head seamstress.

The woman’s eyes twinkled knowingly. “Give me an afternoon.”

Sure enough, come that afternoon the woman had created a beautiful ensemble. There were black flowing pants and matching flats, but the forest green tunic, high necked and delicately patterned with the insignia of Republic City, was the eyecatcher. It fit _perfectly._ It even featured the steel buttons she was so fond of.

The steel buttons that she couldn’t stop fidgeting with at the moment. When would it be her turn for the conference?

“Chief Beifong?”

Lin abruptly turned around and almost ran straight into a young woman, her straight hair cropped bluntly to her shoulders. She wore black chang kben, the silk shining with her every movement, as did her silver sabai. _Oh, so she’s like me,_ Lin thought. _She’s half too._ The outfit was common enough at Fire Nation dinners, but not in the halls of a Republic City private school, and certainly not in those colors. Not that she imagined people focused on that anyways. A smattering of freckles kissed her delicate cheekbones, and her brown eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled warmly in greeting. If she were into the society thing--and Lin suspected otherwise--she would have turned everyone’s heads.

Lin looked down and bashfully rubbed the back of her neck. “Sorry. Force of habit. Are you--”

“Aiko-sensei? That would be me,” the young woman said with a tilt of her head. “And don’t worry about it. I teach children. Getting run into is a daily occurence. Please, follow me.”

Aiko led them into a nearby classroom and gently closed the door behind her. Lin looked around. The room was bright, with a wall of windows letting natural light stream into the room. The small desks were arranged into group formations, leaving spaces for play and nooks for reading. The walls were decorated with children’s drawings and posters animating the colors of the rainbow. In a corner was a large desk and chairs opposite it, perfect for conferences. Lin looked around, taking it all in. This was certainly different than her school days.

“Do you like it?” Aiko-sensei asked, noticing Lin absorbing her surroundings.

“Hm?” Lin murmured. Then she realized that, no, she hadn’t imagined it, the teacher was asking her a question. “Oh, yes, I do. It’s a far cry from what my public school looked like, that’s for sure.”

“I can imagine.”

Lin’s lips quirked upward into a smile because, yes, Aiko-sensei actually _could._ “How do you like being in the private school sector? It’s treating you well, I hope?”

Aiko bobbed her head happily as she settled in her chair. “Very much so. I enjoy being able to really _focus_ on my students. That’s not something that can easily be done in a 40-person classroom.”

Lin snorted. “If at all.”

Aiko smiled. Lin shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The clock ticked in the background, every move of the second hand heightening her anxiety. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Is Chen in trouble?” She blurred out. 

Aiko furrowed her brow in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“Is Chen in trouble?” Lin repeated. “Maybe this school is different, but when I was in school parent-teacher conferences were only for the troublemaking kids.”

“Ah, I see your confusion,” Aiko-sensei responded, clasping her hands together. “No, Chen is not in trouble. In fact, she’s one of my best students.”

Lin visibly relaxed in her chair. “She...she is? How?”

Aiko couldn’t bite back a laugh. “In every way she’s a good student. I mean, she’s so fast on her feet!”

Lin froze. “What?”

“I mean, when it comes to doing tasks she’s always ready to go. And sometimes when experiments do go well, such as the ill-fated bao bun tower we tried to build, she already was trying to come up with a solution.”

The chief exhaled deeply. “Oh. _Oh,_ I see. So you don’t mean physically. At all.”

“Not in this instance, though I’ve heard she’s plenty fast on the playground when she wants to be.”

Her brow furrowed. “When she wants to be?”

“She’s not much of a runner. She prefers to make sandcastles--using her bending, of course--or climb on top of our new metal jungle gym. She’ll just sit there at the top, watching. I think she just likes that it’s metal, more than anything.”

“Is nothing else on the playground?”

“No, the old playset is made out of wood--which is good in its own way, of course, but I know how partial she is to her metal. It reminds her of home, I’m sure.”

Lin smiled, her fingers already having found their way to the metal buttons on her collar. “She’s a metalbender, through and through. I’m just waiting for the day it happens. I won’t have to teach her how, I bet you that.” She paused, the full force of Aiko-sensei’s words hitting her. “What do you mean, it reminds her of home?”

“I mean in that it reminds her of Gaoling. That’s where she is from, right?” Aiko frowned, and began to flip through some paperwork on her desk. “At least, that is what your Lieutenant Saikhan told me. I can see what the official paperwork says--”

“There’s no need,” Lin said crisply. She had almost forgotten the cover story. Chen was a Beifong, born in Gaoling and raised on the estate until she was brought back to Republic City as a baby. Her family was never in the equation.

The best lies always held a part-truth. 

“Yes, she’s from Gaoling,” Lin continued. “I brought her here as a baby, but we try to go back as often as we can. I want her to still feel--what’s the term--”

“Connected?” Aiko-sensei offered.

“Yes, thank you. Connected. I want her to feel connected to her roots.”

“Does she have contact with her family? A-apart from you, of course!” Aiko asked, cheeks reddening.

Lin’s countenance darkened. “It’s...complicated. I’m the only family she has, really.”

Aiko’s blush deepened. “I’m so sorry, Chief Beifong--I shouldn’t have--”

Lin held up her hand in peace. “No, you’re fine. Your questions came from a good place. Besides, you’re her teacher, and based on the way this school does things you’ll be her teacher for a while. You should know.”

Aiko paused for a moment, searching and then pulling out a drawing Chen had made during class and offering it to Lin. “We had an assignment in art class the other day. Draw your favorite things. I think you’ll find what she chose of interest.”

Lin hesitantly accepted the piece of paper and looked closer. It was crayon, all silvers and greys. There was Chen, and then there was...her.

Her and Chen. Together.

“Whoever her parents are, they don’t deserve Chen,” Aiko said softly. “She’s an absolute gem. The way she talks about you in class--she adores you, Chief Beifong. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. Chen will only benefit with having you in her life.”

It’s true, she didn’t deserve Chen. But what Aiko-sensei didn’t know was how much her life had improved since Chen came into her life. She’d work herself to the bone every day if it meant that little girl got what she needed. She loved Chen more than anything.

And if that meant sitting through hundreds more of these conferences, then that is exactly what she will do.  
  



End file.
